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But still, am I capable of being a traitor? “What if I’m not?”
Justin slides his hands into his pockets and his blue eyes go cold. The hairs on my arms stand on end and I rub at the bare skin as if that would grant me warmth. “Just so we’re clear, I wasn’t there last night when Fiend took you. Because if I were, I would have put a stop to it. We all have our boundaries and I don’t kidnap kids, but let’s say I heard things.
“I heard how you had an argument with your mom in your house and then left with your brother to go to the football game. Heard how you had a fight with Eli outside the game over tickets and how you wanted him and the club out of your life. Heard how your brother was with you when you broke down and how the reason Chevy probably didn’t kill one of my guys was because your brother was in the backseat of the car and you two were protecting him.”
“You heard this?” I shiver while heat flushes my cheeks. This man, he was there, and he saw and knows everything.
Justin walks closer to me and stops on his way out of the room so that our shoulders touch. “As if I was there watching, but as I said, I don’t kidnap kids. It would have been a shame if Fiend hadn’t taken you on the side of the road. Maybe waited until you were tucked safely in your bed, entered your home and took you and your mom. Would have been a shame if Fiend had known about your brother in the backseat and brought him along for the ride.”
My head ticks to the side. “Are you threatening my family?”
Justin smiles as he tries for mocked shock. “No, because I don’t do things like that.”
Then he winks. A small part of me wishes that the bullet had hit me and I was dead because then he wouldn’t be using my family as leverage over me.
“We’ll find a way to stay in touch,” he says. “After all, we know where you live.”
CHEVY
MY BRAIN’S FOGGED. Like I was plowed on the football field by a two-hundred-pound linebacker. Like I slammed my head on the ground and I wasn’t wearing a helmet. The world’s fuzzy and I’m having a hard time registering Skull’s words, but he’s talking and I’m trying to listen.
I’m sitting at the table now. Skull’s sitting, too. He’s been explaining that my father didn’t get along with Cyrus—the man who’s raised me as one of his own. That my father, James, joined the Terror because he didn’t feel like there was another option and he later regretted it.
Cyrus told me Dad often felt trapped by Snowflake, so he would go to Louisville and stay for long periods, but he never mentioned Dad being at odds with him, with the Terror.
Skull has a different version. That Dad had a place in Louisville, that he had a steady girlfriend in Louisville, that he hung out and worked with the Riot and they trusted him because he gave the Riot information on the Terror.
My lungs hurt like I’m drowning. If what he’s saying is true? My father was a traitor.
No. My father was no traitor. This asshole is messing with me. “My father was loyal to the Terror.”
“No, he wasn’t.” Skull has the nerve to look at me like he’s sorry to be breaking the news.
“There’s holes in your story. Dad didn’t do steady with women. Even I know that.” From the club and from my mom. A rare moment of information verified on both fronts.
“He didn’t, but the woman he had in Louisville he cared for. Called her a friend, let her live with him after she had run away from home. I can give you her name if you want. Meet her. She’ll confirm everything I’m telling you. In fact, I hope you do. There’s things about her you need to know. Things, as a man who values family, that I think you need to know.”
Probably because he paid her to tell me what he wants me to believe. “You’re full of shit.”
“If I were in your shoes, I’d think the same thing, but it doesn’t change the truth. That Louisville detective figured it out recently. Won’t be long until he’s going to try to use that information against the Terror...and against you.”
I slouch in the seat. “The Terror’s legit and anything my father did or didn’t do doesn’t affect me.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Way I look at it, how well do you know your club? What is it that the Terror are hiding that the son of the president traded sides? Other question to ask yourself is how the other members of Terror are going to treat you once they find out your old man was a traitor. Are they going to be wondering how far off the tree that apple falls?”
Footsteps down the hallway and the man with the scar emerges. Violet limps in behind him. I stand so quickly that the legs of the chair bounce against the floor. She glances over at me and the lost expression on her face is worse than any punch.
Nausea twists my gut. She was alone with him and I fell for it. Skull waved his right hand in order for me to lose focus on his left. “You okay?”
She nods.
“Did he hurt you?”
Violet shakes her head and it bothers me she’s gone mute.
I set my sights on Skull and make it perfectly clear we’re done talking. “Call Eli now, get us home or I swear to God I’ll make each of you bleed before you get a chance to put a bullet in my brain.”
Skull laughs like I told a joke, but stands, pulls his cell out of his pocket and slides it to me. “Once you get ahold of Eli and tell him you’re okay, give the phone to me and I’ll tell him where to pick the two of you up.”
Violet
I’M BLINDFOLDED AGAIN and I’m handcuffed. The car is different, but my placement in the backseat isn’t. This time it was Chevy who placed the cuff on my wrist, then folded the bandana over my eyes. He did both with such care, touching me like I was on the verge of shattering, looking at me with such tender eyes that I wanted to weep.
The blindfold was a “request” from Skull, but the one wrist handcuffed was Chevy’s idea. He didn’t trust them to blindfold us and keep us together. I still don’t trust that they’re taking us to Eli, that they’re taking us home.
Before Chevy did either, he whispered, “Do you trust me?”
Of course I did. Trusted him to be the first boy to hold my hand. Trusted him to be the first boy I kissed. Trusted him to be the first for so many things. Did I trust him with my life? I held out my wrist, then stepped closer so I could allow him to blindfold me.
More than the car is different. The backseat doesn’t smell of rotten food. The material of the seats isn’t torn. The engine doesn’t roar. This ride is quiet. No radio. No one talking. The engine barely a purr.
This time Chevy sits with me in the backseat. Our legs are pressed tight together and he hooked one of his fingers with mine. He continuously slides his finger up and down in a reassuring caress. Not too fast, not too slow. It’s like a heartbeat.
A promise.
We’re going home.
He’s here with me.
It’s going to be okay.
I want to believe him, but I’m not sure if I can. There’s a nagging sensation that we’re reaching the end and not as in the they-all-lived-happily-ever-after, but as in the tragic finality of a nightmare.
My mouth is dry, my blood feels funny as it courses through my veins. Never thought much about breathing until this all happened. How air feels so good coming into my lungs and refreshing as it leaves. How each inhale and exhale is a gift.
Never thought too much about how a comforting touch from someone you care for is a blessing. Chevy is a blessing. Breathing is a gift. My heart beats a bit faster. I could be on the verge of losing both.
The car leaves the smoothness of a paved road and Chevy and I jostle into each other as the car dips and rocks. We’re on a dirt path. A knot forms in my throat. Not good. Not good at all. My stomach flips, and I breathe out to try to calm my nerves, but it doesn’t help.
Chevy shifts, his head near mine, his breath warm on my ear. “You and me, Violet. We’re going to get through this. Just do what I say when I say it.”
I nod. Together. We’re going to survive this together.
The car slows to a stop, a door opens and my heart beats in my ears. Chevy fidgets next to me, leaning forward. There’s a click, and a loosening of the handcuff and then the blindfold is lifted from my eyes. I blink at the brightness and snap my head in Chevy’s direction when his door opens. Both of his hands are free, the handcuff still on my wrist, but I’m not bound to anyone or anything anymore.
Chevy slides out and I scramble across the seat to follow. Frantically, I glance around, searching for Eli, but besides Justin, there’s not another living soul. Trees. Lots of trees. Trees full of colored leaves and the sunlight filtering through the thick branches, but no Eli.
They lied.
A hollowness in my stomach and the world tilts. Chevy grabs my hand and yanks me. “Run, Violet!”
He shoves me away from the car, away from Justin, away from him, but instead I reach out for Chevy, to force him to come with me. I will not abandon him now.
“Eli’s at the other end of this road,” Justin says in such a calm way that it’s frightening. “A half mile. I didn’t bring you out here to kill you, I’m sending you home.”
I grab on to Chevy’s wrist. He readjusts, taking my fingers with his.
Justin sets his hard glare on me. “I already explained we want peace. Me and Eli in the same breathing space means war. Safer for both of our clubs to drop you off here.”
“Then get in the car and leave,” Chevy says.
Justin glances over me, as if he’s trying to judge whether or not I’ll do what he’s asked. As a reminder of what they could do to my brother and mother if I don’t.
Without another word, Justin returns to the car. The world has an unreal quality to it, as if I’m watching a movie, as he U-turns and drives back the way he came.
We’re free.
Yet the adrenaline coursing through my veins doesn’t feel like relief. My back itches like someone is watching, my entire body vibrates with the sense we’re about to be ambushed—as if I’ll never be safe again.
The wind blows through the trees, making a clapping sound, and the breeze is cold against my cheeks. Chevy’s hand is warm and strong. We watch Justin’s car leave. Rocks cracking under the pressure of the tires. Dirt blowing up as a cloud in the wind.
The dust settles, the car retreats around a bend, the sound of the rocks being driven over and the purring engine fade yet we still stare in the direction Justin disappeared. As if we’re both frightened to turn our backs and tempt fate to drag us back to the basement prison.
Chevy pulls on my hand. “Let’s go.”
He steps forward, I walk with him and unbelievable pain shoots through my knee. I falter, clinging to Chevy as I try not to fall to the ground. The pain then leaks into my blood and every bruise, every cut throbs in agony. I gasp, confused how I had gone from no pain to sheer torture.
Chevy steadies me. “You okay?”
I nod, but I’m not, and from the sympathetic way he looks at me, he’s aware. With a sturdy arm around my waist, we go forward. Each step causes my muscles to twinge, my knee to give, bringing me to a new level of exhaustion, but each of those steps brings me closer to home, brings Chevy closer to home, and he needs to be home.
He needs stitches for the gash on his head, he needs a doctor to look at the eye that’s so swollen I’m sure he can barely see and he needs to be safe and secure and as far from the Riot as possible.
We hobble up a hill and that’s when we see them—Eli, Cyrus, Pigpen and a whole group of men. They’re leaning against their motorcycles, but the moment they see us, they straighten and some of them are on the move in our direction. Chevy’s grip tightens on me and I lean into him. My eyes water and it becomes too blurry to see. We made it. We’re going home.
Chevy starts down the hill, but this time when my knee gives, I go down with it. The hard ground is honestly a blessing and my fingers touch the grass and dirt like it’s a pillow and a bed. I don’t hunker down, but I consider it. Dream of resting my head and going to sleep. Then I can begin to pretend this was all just a bad dream, an awful dream.
“We’re almost there.” Chevy crouches beside me.
I’m too tired to talk. Too afraid if I do, then I’ll discover that this part of the nightmare—the part where it might end well—was a dream. I’ll twitch my finger, awaken and be back in the basement. I glance up at Chevy and the sun beaming behind him hurts my eyes.
“I’m not going without you.” Chevy slides his arms under my knees, along my back, and lifts me, cradling me against his chest as he walks toward his family. I’m too exhausted to argue. Only have the strength to slip my arms around his neck and rest my head in the crook of his neck.
“We’re almost there,” he says again. “Almost home. They see us and they’re coming for us now. We’re going to be okay.”
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